By Rick Powdrell*
Boy oh boy, doesn’t it feel good to be a sheep and beef farmer for once.
Of course it wasn’t always that way.
We were the dairy industry for decades, almost as soon as the Dunedin slipped out of Port Chalmers in 1882, we rode the sheep’s back.
The good times operated under a simple business model. We grew meat and fibre and Britain needed it.
Through war and peace, these good times seemed destined to run forever.
Our success blinded us to what the bright sparks at companies like DuPont were doing. That was until they ‘wool-jacked’ us with oil based fibres. That wasn’t helped by lamb being seen in the 1970s as your grans’ meal. You could have lamb cooked anyway you wanted as long as it came in a roasting tin.
Other meats became trendier and in some instances, cheaper, while our industry was trapped in a Sunday roast.
We all know the 1980’s delivered the reckoning for all farmers; from wine growers to dairy to us sheep and beef farmers, it was hard. In 1989, Federated Farmers’ dairy section responded to tough times with a competition, among other things. Okay, I am simplifying here, but just look at the NZ Dairy Industry Awards today and the razzmatazz it injects into the dairy industry. This competition gets bigger and brighter with each passing year.
About ten years ago we started to follow suit. First with ‘Steak of Origin’ for beef and quickly followed up by the Golden Lamb Awards, or Glammies. Both these fantastic awards are about the end product and there’s no direct dairy equivalent.
Younger still are the Beef + Lamb Sheep Industry Awards, now into its third year with the most recent taking place in Napier last week. I’ve got a feeling these will become more than our industry’s equivalent of the NZ Dairy Industry Awards. Unlike them, the Sheep Industry Awards cover off ten genetics-based awards and five areas of industry excellence.
This is not going to be an Oscars speech since you can get the full lowdown by Googling “Sheep Industry Awards.” To me, it’s about getting on the front foot with sheep as the true multi-product animal. We know about lamb, mutton & wool and can add milk these days too. Awards are a way for us to benchmark and do better.
This is what makes our awards totally different from the dairy guys. It is about recognising the ‘rockstars’ of the Kiwi sheep industry as NZ Farmer recently put it. I was there and the buzz was something to behold. It reminded me of what comedian-farmer Te Radar told the Federated Farmers National Conference, farmers do not celebrate success nearly enough.
Wool of course remains important to balance out meat returns and the proposed wool levy gives farmers a golden opportunity to show unity around wool. That’s the first step towards unity on other issues too.
You see the productivity gains that benefit us on-farm in wool, meat and even milk these days, all come from the dedication and passion of breeders and researchers. They work hard to build genetic gains into the national flock, which has enabled us to produce more output from far fewer animals. The genetics awards within the Sheep Industry Awards acknowledged just this and the performance traits of breeds within the national flock. A special mention should be made of the award to Dr Chris Morris in acknowledgement of his many years of work in the facial eczema space at AgResearch Ruakura.
It is high time to concentrate on our significant industry, New Zealand’s number two export worth over $6 billion. We need to stop enviously looking over the fence towards our dairy mates, though this season, it could well be the reverse.
Yet this is not to say we cannot learn a trick or two from them.
Having been at the awards and experienced our buzz the razzmatazz will come, hopefully too, we will recognise key talent within our industry like the dairy boys and girls do. It means we can recognise the technical aspects of our great industry by celebrating the best practitioners. Chuck in winner field days and you’ve got a great showcase to inspire young people into our industry taking you on a pasture to plate journey capped off by the Glammies.
Beef+Lamb’s Sheep Industry Awards are about celebrating our top-performing sheep breeders and all-round excellence within the sector. There’s positivity we’ve got going right now and a genuine feeling that the coming years are to be our time in the sun.
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Rick Powdrell is Federated Farmers Meat & Fibre Chairperson
8 Comments
What is it with all these pollyanna commentaries on the red meat sector? The lamb and mutton schedules are actually dropping at the moment down here, at a time when they are normally lifting. A quick look at the Alliance bull schedule tells me it is at $3.85kg this week which is below what it was 15 years ago, although I understand it is approaching $5kg up north. Fundamentally nothing has changed except an alternative landuse has declined, hardly reason the cheer from the rooftops.
Shaggers thats not a hint of cynicism I picking up is it? The game is played this way, its all wine and roses, its all about the spin, if you can keep a positive attitude all's going to end well. Meanwhile out the back the modern day robber barons are making sure the financialisation of everything in our lives is going to plan.
What do you know about the 53,000 acre gift to the QEII trust by Shania Twains ex husband in Wanaka, sounds like a crock of Sh*t, as he keeps total control and access is not available and it was only lease land to start with. Now they are in line for a big payout from the government as they freehold a lot of the station. It made a good story, a nice 'soundbite' to counter the China buys Lochinver, not all investment is bad spin, look here some is better than good, 'but don't look too hard'.
From QEII
Private property rightsPrivate property rights are not jeopardised by a covenant - the landowner retains ownership and management of the land. Visitor access is available only with the landowner's prior permission.
http://www.openspace.org.nz/Site/About_covenanting/
Meanwhile back in the supermarket the cheapest cuts will be mince and sausages starting at around $10 per kilo for the bottom line sossies and mince on special, I just don't look at the lamb any more and there is no such thing as hogget, my preference. I don't eat pork for moral reasons and chicken I will only eat free range as that mushy stuff on the other is simply not meat. It seems like a good time to finally go completely vegetarian I think.
Here's Jane Kelsey's latest explanation of gloablisation mechanisms likely to be employed by the US in relation to TPPA (if it ever gets to that);
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=113…
A union leader has berated the Government for selling the "fundamental rights" of workers in order to convince Hollywood studio Warner Bros to keep the filming of The Hobbit in New Zealand.
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